Single Dad in a Kilt, page 1
Single Dad in a Kilt
A Friends to Lovers, Single Dad-Nanny, Parent Trap, Small Town Scottish Romance
Kilted Hearts
Book 5
Kait Nolan
Take The Leap Publishing
Copyright © 2023 by Kait Nolan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
Contents
Invite
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Other Books By Kait Nolan
About Kait
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One
Hamish Colquhoun had known there’d be challenges when he chose to move back home to Glenlaig from Edinburgh. He’d been ready for the endless list of renovations and repairs to the two-hundred-year-old farmhouse he’d bought. He’d braced himself for the back and forth necessary to ensure that his daughter, Freya, retained some kind of relationship with her mother. He’d even known that the switch from contract law to a family law practice would lead to an entirely different sort of caseload, and he’d welcomed the change of pace.
But nothing in his varied legal career had prepared him for this.
One of the… things in the enclosed livestock trailer screamed, and Hamish stumbled back, wondering if he’d somehow wandered onto the set of a slasher film. Maybe he was dreaming.
Stuart MacDonald grinned.
Drawing on every shred of remaining professionalism he possessed, Hamish managed to choke back the impassioned, What the fuck? and instead asked, “What have you got here, Stuart?”
Looking inordinately pleased with himself, Stuart rocked back on his heels and folded his arms. “Your new landscaping crew.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I remembered what you said at your office a couple months back, when we were doing the reading of Mum’s will. About how you were having a hard time keeping up with the weeding and clearing of the land since you bought the place.”
Hamish barely remembered the conversation. It had just been small talk to ease what had been a difficult day for the son of his late client, Catriona MacDonald. When Stuart didn’t continue, Hamish arched an expectant brow. “Aye?”
“Well, these were Mum’s goats. Certainly, we can’t keep them at our flat in Glasgow, so they need to be re-homed. When I remembered you had this place, I thought this was the ideal solution. You’ve got a barn right here that’s empty and ready to go.”
It was empty. Hamish didn’t know about ready to go. Other than making sure the place wasn’t about to cave in and pose a danger to his daughter, he hadn’t done a bloody thing with the barn. It hadn’t even rated going on the priority list, and he didn’t want to add it now. He couldn’t handle another living thing to care for beyond himself and Freya. He’d already been fending off her daily requests for a puppy and a horse. At no point had goats ever been under consideration.
Struggling to find a more tactful response than “Not no, but hell no,” Hamish tried to offer a friendly smile. “I appreciate the offer, but I dinna know the first thing about taking care of goats.”
Stuart waved that away. “Oh, it’s easy. This time of year, you’ll keep them in the barn. They’ve got hair, no’ wool like sheep, so they’re no’ waterproof. And you dinna want to leave them out in the wet or they’ll end up with foot rot. But on the days that it’s no’ raining and no’ completely freezing, you’ll just let them out to forage, and they’ll eat everything that you dinna want.”
They were goats. Didn’t they eat everything? Wasn’t that a thing?
“But—”
“You’ve already got a fence.” Stuart scanned the overgrown length of it. “You might need to patch it in a couple of places, but that willnae be a big deal. You’ve got plenty of time to do that before spring. In the meantime, they’ll basically be barn animals. I even brought you enough hay to get you started for a couple of weeks.”
A low-level panic began to bubble in Hamish’s blood. He was already struggling. Being a single parent was so much harder than he’d thought it would be, even with his parents’ help, and even though Freya was reasonably self-sufficient at twelve. The idea of adding something else—multiple somethings, based on the shifting and milling happening inside the trailer—was absolutely overwhelming.
Later, he’d decide it was the overwhelm that had kept him from being able to make his brain work to find a polite way to decline the lunatic offer.
“I dinna know what to say.” That was the God’s honest truth.
“You gave so much peace and comfort to my mother by helping sort out her will and her estate. She would want you to have them.”
How the hell was he supposed to say “No” after that?
“Well, I… guess we should unload them.”
Beaming, Stuart climbed into his 4x4 and backed the trailer up to the barn.
In the back of Hamish’s brain, he was already plotting. Stuart didn’t live in Glenlaig. His mother’s estate was all sorted, other than this. The house was already under contract, so Stuart would be headed back to Glasgow soon. Hamish could take the animals for now and find someone else who’d want them. Surely there was someone at one of the crofts at Lochmara or Ardinmuir who could use some free goats?
The moment Stuart dropped the gate of the trailer and began herding its occupants out, Hamish started rethinking his plan. The lead goat screamed at him, aiming one wide, golden eye in his direction as he—she—it?—charged past.
Okay, how could anything with a horizontal pupil not be demon spawn?
The remaining goats—there were six in all—took a more leisurely stroll down the gate and into the open barn.
“I… uh… Do they have to be milked?” Goat milk was a thing, wasn’t it?
Stuart laughed. “No, no. These are meat goats, no’ dairy goats. They’re the best for clearing land. None of them have had kids. You’ve got four females and two wethers.”
“Wethers?”
“Castrated males.”
“So, I dinna have to worry about any of them making more baby goats?”
“No. There are no billies in the herd. Which is just as well. They smell right manky.”
Small mercies.
Stuart did most of the herding of the goats into the pens inside the barn that had been used for some sort of livestock in the past. They unloaded the four rectangular hay bales he’d brought, and Stuart made some observations about lighting and heating that had a headache clawing at the back of Hamish’s skull as he added more things to his never-ending to-do list.
After shutting the barn doors, Stuart clasped his hand in a warm grip. “Thanks again for all your help with Mum. Death is never easy, but you made handling the aftermath a lot less hassle than it could’ve been.”
At the end of the day, that was the biggest reason Hamish had decided to shift into family law instead of continuing work for his Edinburgh firm through telework. The personal aspect of having a direct impact on people’s lives. “That was what your mother wanted.”
As Stuart started to climb back into the driver’s seat, Hamish called out. “Wait. What are they called? Their names?”
“Mum changed her mind on the regular. You can call them anything you want. Just not Billy. That old goat is my father-in-law.” With one last cheeky grin, he drove away, leaving Hamish the very reluctant new owner of a half-dozen goats.
“How the hell has my life come to this?”
There was no one around to answer the question, as Freya was off with her grandparents for the afternoon while he did some solo work on the house. The rambling structure had been added on to repeatedly over the past couple of centuries, up and out on both ends, such that it looked like something that ought to house a family of Weasleys rather than a lawyer and his daughter. But that was part of what had drawn him to the house. Dayna, his ex-wife, wouldn’t have even gotten out of the car, let alone come inside to see the charm and history of the place. And yeah, maybe there were a million-and-one projects that still needed to be finished. But he and his daughter had done a lot of bonding over painting and repairs and deciding what they wanted things to be. Given how Dayna seemed to have largely opted out of parenthood since the divorce, that was more important now
A sound from the barn reminded him of his new charges.
Right. He should call Malcolm. The estate manager over at Lochmara would probably have some suggestions about what he needed to do with the goats. He might even know someone who could take them off Hamish’s hands immediately. That would probably be better. God forbid Freya catch sight of them. She’d never expressed an interest in goats, but she was so desperate for some sort of pet that he didn’t want to see her get attached to these, only to get heartbroken when they were re-homed. And they would be re-homed. Hamish was determined.
Maybe Malcolm’s fiancée, Charlotte, would want them. She adored the trio of Valais black nose sheep Malcolm had given her…
Before Hamish could make the call, his phone rang. His mother, according to the display. She was probably going to invite them over for dinner tonight, and he’d probably say yes, even though he knew he needed to work on being better about planning and executing meals at home.
“Hey, Mum.”
“Hamish.”
At the strain in her voice, he went ramrod straight, his fingers tightening on the phone. “What’s wrong? Is it Freya?”
If anything had happened to his daughter—
“No. Freya’s fine. It’s your grandmother.”
Afton Lennox rolled up to the three-story Victorian with a sense of relief. The drive into the mountains from Nashville, up to the tiny town of Eden’s Ridge, had been a lot longer than what she was used to having grown up in Scotland, where one hundred miles was considered a long way. She was tired, but it felt good to be out of the city. She was a village girl at the core. The hustle and bustle would never be her natural milieu, and this little corner of Tennessee had carved out a place in her heart, because the people here had saved her life.
Or, at the very least, her sanity, which kind of amounted to the same thing.
At this time of day, the staff of The Misfit Inn would be split between the inn and the spa, depending on bookings. But she’d come to see someone else. Parking in the guest lot, Afton climbed out of her car and strolled down the familiar manicured path between the house and the converted barn that housed the spa. Though it was chilly, it wasn’t nearly as cold here for the first week of December as it would be back home, so there were still pops of color from pansies and dianthus, verbena and dahlias. Something else she hadn’t gotten used to.
At the back of the property sat The Misfit Kitchen, where Afton had found that second home. Part studio, part cooking school, The Misfit Kitchen was the brainchild of Athena Reynolds Maxwell, a James-Beard-award-winning, Michelin-starred chef who’d returned home to Tennessee after a scandal around her restaurant in Chicago. She’d reinvented herself, starting a web-based cooking show that had taken the internet by storm. That was the purpose of the studio. But Athena still taught the occasional small-format, in-person class, and it was through one of those that Afton had met her and found a new purpose. It had taken considerable work to convince Athena to take her on as an apprentice. But the farm-to-table cooking that Athena promoted on her show and in her cookbooks was something that appealed to Afton on a visceral level. Deep down, it was something she hoped to eventually take back to Scotland.
But that was getting way ahead of things.
Mindful of the fact that they were quite possibly taping, Afton slipped inside, carefully easing the door shut behind her. Scott, the twenty-something camera guy, was in his usual spot, rapt attention on Athena as she pulled something out of the oven that already had Afton’s mouth watering. From the side of the room, she heard a gasp and turned.
Athena’s seventeen-year-old niece, Ari, straightened from the wall with a silent pantomime that almost had Afton laughing. After many months of working with her, Afton could clearly follow the wild gesticulations.
Oh, my God, you’re here! Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? It’s so good to see you!
This last part was communicated through an enthusiastic hug that Afton returned.
From the studio kitchen, Athena smiled at the camera as she held out the plated final dish. “There now, doesn’t that look delicious? It’s sure to impress whatever company you’re having over. Those judgey in-laws. That boss you’re hoping will promote you. That special someone you want to wow. Remember, you can find the recipes from today’s episode on the website. With lots of love from my kitchen to yours, I’m Athena Reynolds. Bye, y’all.”
“That’s a wrap!” Scott announced.
As soon as the camera shut off, Athena scooted out from behind the counter and crossed over to fold Afton into a hug herself. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
“Back at you.”
Her friend and mentor pulled back to study her. “So, are you finished, or are you just here for a visit?”
“I’m through with all my externship hours. I have officially been minted a gourmet chef.”
Athena grinned. “I knew you could do it. Come. Sit. We’ll eat some of what I just cooked, and you can tell us everything.”
“Sounds perfect.”
The food was divvied up among three plates and some takeout containers. The latter were pushed on Scott, who apparently hoped to impress a date. With a promise to have the next episode edited and ready to post by the end of the weekend, he darted out the door.
Then Afton, Athena, and Ari sat around one of the tables.
Athena pointed to the plate. “Analyze it. Tell me what’s in here.”
Well used to the exercise by now, Afton examined her plate, forking up a bite of the first side. “Wild rice with butternut squash and cranberries.” She dipped into the greens beside it. “Collard greens with smoked bacon and a splash of apple cider vinegar for that tang.” Cutting into the meat, she brought a bite to her mouth. “And cider-braised pork shoulder with apples and onions.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Athena picked up her own fork. “Very good.”
Afton basked in the glow of approval.
Ari dove into her own food. “So you’re done with the externship and have all the credentials and stuff. Now what?”
“I have no idea.” She turned to Athena. “But I wanted to come and thank you, because I wouldn’t have gotten here without you.”
“You would’ve. It just might’ve looked different. And I owe you thanks, too. I never really thought I’d like teaching to that degree. When I had Olympus, I didn’t have apprentices like that. But it’s been a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Teaching someone who really wants to learn and has a legitimate aptitude makes all the difference.”
“You made it easy.”
Her mentor laughed. “I know I didn’t. I’m many things as a chef. Easy isn’t one of them. Take your props, woman.”
Afton laughed. “Fair enough.”
“What do you want to do next?”
“Well, I need a job. That’s kind of important. But the lease on my flat in Nashville is up at the end of the month, so I have to decide whether I’m going to renew it and try to find something there, or go somewhere else.”
Rolling her lips between her teeth, Athena exchanged a look with Ari that made it clear the two had been discussing Afton. “What about home?”
Home was a long way off, and Afton had been putting a lot of concerted effort into not thinking about it. “I dinna know.”
Athena put down her fork. “Real talk: Honey, it’s time. It’s been over a year and a half. You need to go home. Even if you don’t stay, you need some closure on that whole situation.”
How exactly did a runaway bride get closure?
“It’s not that easy. I dinna know exactly what I left behind or how anybody feels. I pissed a lot of people off when I ran, and I dinna know that anyone wants to hear from me.”
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